


The Keen Edge of Memory

by Caly_X



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Modern Era, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 05:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20960930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caly_X/pseuds/Caly_X
Summary: "I thought these sessions were supposed to help you," muttered Dettlaff, seeing Regis's pale face as he walked into the apartment."They're helping me," Regis shot back. "Oh, they're helping me. Helping me remember what I'd like to forget." He opened the hall closet door a tad too forcefully. Its hinges whined, and the door banged against the wall.--A harrowing incident brings back memories for Regis, strains his relationship with Dettlaff, and leads him to a counselor's office, where he tries to reveal the least possible amount of information about himself to gain the greatest possible therapeutic benefit. (Regis and Dettlaff have survived into contemporary times.)





	1. Intake Session

**Author's Note:**

> "I suggest," said the vampire frigidly, "that you shake hands. I suggest never, ever, revisiting this matter."  
\-- The Tower of Swallows
> 
> I read that and thought, "This attitude of Regis's might backfire one day." And thus this fic was born.

The man who entered the room was considerably older than the counselor expected a student to be, even a graduate student, but mature students were not unusual at the University of Oxenfurt. Thin, greying, with kindly agate-black eyes, the man resembled a personal accountant more than someone who'd been the talk of the campus for the last week.

The counselor stood up and extended her hand. "Nice to meet you," she said pleasantly. "My name is Agatha."

The man grasped her hand and shook it politely and firmly. "Mine is Regis," he said, although his name was on the forms on the clipboard in Agatha's hand. Regis's hand, Agatha noticed, was quite cold. She made a mental note to check the thermostat in the waiting room during her lunch break.

"Won't you please take a seat?" She indicated a plush armchair. The room was small and sparsely furnished, but the weathered and intricately patterned upholstery of the two armchairs in the room made the place feel more cozy than claustrophobic. "This is an intake session, so I'll just be going over some questions with you today to help us figure out what's going well for you and what we can help make better. What we talk about during our sessions—today and in the future—will remain confidential, just between us, unless I need to talk to someone else in order to help you."

They each settled in an armchair. "That sounds good," Regis said easily. Unlike the other students she saw in her practice, he was neither unsure and shrinking in her presence nor exaggeratedly confident. She put her pen to the clipboard. The intake questions would give her a better picture of him.

"I understand you're a graduate student."

"That is correct. I study epidemiology." 

"What brings you here today?"

"I took an online screening test on the university mental health website and it told me to come here."

Agatha smiled down at her clipboard and brushed her hair away from her cheek. "It's good that you came. How would you describe your situation? What problems are you experiencing?" She had to ask, even though she was quite sure of the answer already.

"Hm." Regis cleared his throat. "I've had trouble sleeping since the knife attack."


	2. Blade

_Earlier..._

"I'm home," Regis called out as he wiped his shoes on the doormat. A nearby grunt told him that Dettlaff was occupied in the bathroom, which was right next to the hallway closet in their tiny apartment. The door to the bathroom was open. Regis happened to glance in as he walked by and he saw that Dettlaff was shaving.

In the mirror, it looked as if the straight blade was dancing in front of thin air.

"For the life of me I can't understand why you bother with the mirror." Regis opened the fridge. The kitchen was right next to the bathroom. "Or why you shave in the evening."

Another grunt came from the bathroom. Regis poured himself some milk. The sound of splashing and running water started, subsided, and was replaced by Dettlaff's voice: "The sink is in front of the mirror. And you know that I'm more awake at night and less likely to cut myself shaving blind." Dettlaff poked his clean-shaven face out of the bathroom and tossed a towel from the bathroom into his room, which was right across from the bathroom. The straight razor glinted under the hallway light as the towel flew out of his hand.

_"He's got a knife!"_

_A scream pierced the air. Concentric waves of people spread outward from the middle of the foot bridge. One of the waves caught up with Regis, who had been about to cross the bridge. He put his elbows up and out instinctively and braced himself, ready to let himself be carried away by the crush of people if it came to that._

_More screams; a choked cry._

_Regis drew his elbows in and pushed towards the center of the bridge, leading with his shoulder. He could see someone slashing indiscriminately left and right, the steel of a large knife flashing in the sunlight. Amid the cacophony of cries, screams, and the thundering of the bridge under panicked feet, he couldn't be sure how many people had been struck, but he didn't have to know. He just knew he had to prevent more casualties._

_The middle of the bridge was clearing rapidly, and the attacker began to run after the fleeing students._

_Feeling a strong sense of deja vu, Regis threw himself between the attacker and another man. He released an involuntary "oof" as the knife hit him like a punch in the ribs. He grabbed the elbows of the attacker with an iron grip and drew him close to stop him from getting away. It was a young, dark-haired man with piercing blue eyes, a five o'clock shadow and a frenzied expression. And sharp teeth..._

_Regis shuddered and blinked. No, the man actually had brown eyes and brown hair and looked quite normal. His expression was now one of confusion. One that said, "How are you still standing?" The knife was stuck up to the hilt, Regis realized. He had to act quickly before anyone noticed. He looked into the attacker's eyes. "Don't worry, you didn't hurt me at all. I'll take your knife, and you'll talk to the police about what you did here."_

_Mesmerized, the man nodded and let go of the knife handle. Regis let go of one elbow, unstuck the knife from his ribs and threw it on the ground, far away from the attacker. He felt his insides come together with a soft squelch. He retained his grip on the man's other elbow, although at this point it was unnecessary._

_Campus security came running onto the now otherwise empty bridge._

Dettlaff joined Regis in the kitchen. "You're home late," said Dettlaff as he reached for the milk that Regis had left on the counter. The latter sighed and began unbuttoning his coat. Dettlaff wrinkled his nose at the sight of the bloodstained hole in Regis's shirt.

"I had to talk to the police."

"What happened?"

"Watch the news," Regis replied, uncharacteristically laconic.

"That doesn't come on until nine." Dettlaff put away the milk and looked at Regis with his piercing blue eyes. "Talk to me."

Regis looked back at Dettlaff sadly. He didn't think his friend would understand. Centuries of living among humans on and off had certainly mellowed Dettlaff somewhat, but, of the two vampires, Regis remained by far the more empathetic one. And perhaps, in his own way, the more sensitive one.

"I don't want to. Forgive me, Dettlaff," Regis said bluntly.

"Hm." Dettlaff turned on the kitchen tap. Regis stared at Dettlaff's hands as he scrubbed them. No, he had imagined the red gore on his brother's hands. He was just washing the dishes. "Perhaps you'll talk to the university counselor, then."

"Excuse me?"

"Ever since therapists and counselors emerged you've been trying to convince me of the benefits of going to one." Dettlaff pointed a sponge wand accusingly at Regis.

Regis inclined his head and gave a tight-lipped smile. "I'll be fine."

Dettlaff turned back to the dishes. "That's what I always said."


	3. Mortality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains references to book events.

The white double doors separating the waiting room from the corridor to the counseling rooms swung open. A young lady appeared with a clipboard. It seemed that everyone in this office carried clipboards.

"Regis Godefroy?"

Regis stood up and nodded. 

"Please follow me."

He trotted obediently after the young lady, through the double doors, into the brightly lit carpeted corridor. The lady with the clipboard opened a door and gestured for Regis to enter. Agatha was sitting in an armchair, waiting for him. As he entered the room, he noticed Agatha's nose twitch slightly. He idly wondered if his cologne—warm and herbal with a hint of bitter wormwood—was irritating her. They exchanged pleasantries and got down to business.

"Has anything changed since our last meeting?" Agatha asked kindly. 

"No. If you'll pardon my directness, I'd like to speak specifically on one topic today," Regis began quietly but forcefully. He noticed Agatha raising her eyebrows ever so slightly. Apparently not every patient of hers took the conversational bull by the horns. "I'd like to talk about..." He trailed off, suddenly losing steam, losing his train of thought. "Death," he resumed, surprising himself. That wasn't what he had been planning to talk about. "In particular, mortality." He paused; where were these words coming from? "And, to be precise, my own." Regis furrowed his brows and coughed to hide his bewilderment at his own words.

"Mortality... your mortality... please go on." Agatha looked at him expectantly. He could see that she was expecting him to talk about the knife attack, about coming close to death, and so he did.

"The knife attack caught me unawares," Regis stated. Then he hesitated, unsure what else to say. What mortality could he speak of?

"I'm all ears. Please tell me more." Agatha seemed to be feigning a studied indifference, neutrality, calm. Regis recognized the instinct and the posture and what it was meant to elicit. She added, "Perhaps you can describe the events of that day—just the events."

"I was about to cross the bridge to get to the bus stop. I was on my way home. The sun was shining; it was a clear and beautiful day. The water was shimmering in the canal below."

_We were sailing down the Yaruga._

"The bridge was exceedingly crowded, and both banks were teeming with people. A session of class had just let out, probably. I'm not sure of the schedule of classes for the undergraduates."

_The Nilfgaardians on one bank, the White Queen and her partisans on the other. _

"I heard screams all of a sudden. People started running away from the center of the bridge."

_Arrows were flying at us. Milva, Cahir, Geralt... all giving them hell. And I was standing on the deck, up to my ears in fear._

"I... found myself close to the attacker."

_One arrow hit me right in the sternum. I can't believe nobody else got hit the same way then._

"One thing you should know, Agatha, is that I am a coward."

_Not that it mattered in the end._

There was a brief silence as Regis gathered his thoughts and forced himself to focus. Agatha waited politely. Regis drew a deep breath and resumed. 

"What else is there to say? I grabbed him, he let go of the knife—" Regis omitted the details as easily as he'd omitted parts of his name over the years, "—campus security came, and then the police. I gave my statement and went home."

Agatha nodded and wrote something down. Regis resisted the urge to crane his neck to look over at her clipboard. "Thank you for telling me about that day," she said, glancing up from her writing. "It can't be easy to relive the experience, but it will get easier each time you talk about it. It will take time, but it really will get easier." 

Regis pondered over her statement. 

"Did you want to say something about mortality?" she added.

"I'm not sure what I have to say about it anymore," Regis admitted with a hint of embarrassment. "Perhaps you could remind me..."

"I believe you wanted to talk about your own mortality. You were grazed in the attack, weren't you?"

Grazed, Regis thought, is a nice way of putting it. Granted, the effect of being stabbed for a vampire came down to the same thing as being grazed for a human.

"Grazed," Regis echoed. "Just grazed! It definitely wasn't the most painful thing I'd ever experienced."

_Geralt's scream of horror mingled with Regis's scream of unimaginable pain as Vilgefortz tore the vampire apart. Melted him, boiled him alive with magical fire. Left him fused to a column in a castle ruin. If Dettlaff hadn't found him..._

"And yet it seems to have opened some wounds inside of me."


	4. Helping

"So... why epidemiology, Regis?"

The two vampires were tucked away in a shadowy corner of the coffee shop, far away from the big, reflective glass windows that made up the shopfront. It was a rainy Saturday morning. Neither of them had work or class today, and so Regis had dragged Dettlaff out of bed to get the first pumpkin spice lattes of the season. Dettlaff had acquiesced only because he thought Regis might finally deign to talk to him at the coffee shop. He had been awfully monosyllabic in his interactions with Dettlaff at home ever since the incident.

"Why not?" Regis sipped his steaming latte, obviously more out of habit and the desire to blend in than out of necessity. The hot drink wasn't going to scald him. 

Two syllables. An improvement, Dettlaff thought. When no further elaboration was forthcoming, he decided to go ahead and talk for two, first waking himself up with a large gulp of his hot coffee. "You've studied everything in the medical field over the years. You've racked up countless degrees and qualifications under different names. Of course, you've forayed into the humanities and agriculture and other fields, but I must admit that your choice of epidemiology for an intensive course of study surprised me. I thought you liked being on the ground and helping people."

Regis smiled, tight-lipped. Dettlaff hated that he wasn't showing his teeth in a natural smile. But of course; they were in public and he didn't want to scare people away with his fangs. "I do," Regis finally acknowledged between sips of latte.

This time Dettlaff didn't wait for Regis to continue. "Well, then. Epidemiology also helps people, just in a different way. That much is obvious. I suppose I just don't understand why you left behind something you loved doing and did so well for centuries. Perhaps you feel you've already done your time, expiated your youthful sins. Perhaps you actually are tired of helping people," Dettlaff concluded provocatively, and intentionally so.

It worked. Regis bristled. "I'm not tired of helping people."

"What is it, then?"

"I'm tired of them dying on me."


	5. Helplessness

We're getting somewhere, Agatha thought. He's opened up about his past. And I have an idea what bothers him about it.

Sitting in the armchair opposite her, Regis tugged at a belt loop absent-mindedly as he continued speaking.

"You understand that I'm old. I'm older than I look. I've outlived many friends. Death is familiar to me. I'm used to seeing her dog the steps of the people around me. And to know that someone died from this knife attack... It shouldn't bother me, but it does. Why does it bother me?"

Agatha remained professionally silent.

"It bothers me, I think," Regis continued after a slight pause, "because it reminds me of my helplessness. I study epidemiology now, but once..."

Once you saw combat, Agatha thought to herself. You were a field medic, or something similar. And you couldn't stand to not be able to save everyone. Or...

"I used to treat people, heal them. And then they died later anyway."

Completely needlessly, Agatha thought. Or perhaps in the service of a good cause, who knows?

"On the other hand, I had a few friends who died of old age. One particularly dear one I can't forget. After years. After such a long time that you, dear young one, cannot possibly imagine... "

Agatha remained politely silent.

"We went through a lot together. We saw a lot of... deaths. He was like me, always wanting to help people. But, once, we were powerless to stop a terrible thing. Thousands of people, in one night..." Regis drummed his fingers on the armrest and looked over at Agatha. "I'm sorry. I'm rambling."

She meant to respond, "Please go on," but the tired and crestfallen look in those usually self-assured black eyes aroused a pang of pity in her, and she said instead, "Don't be. You did all you could."

Silence fell like a pall over the two of them. She felt like kicking herself for indulging in platitudes. They were one of the least useful things you could say.

Black eyes bored into hers. "All I could do was not enough."


	6. Night

"I thought these sessions were supposed to help you," muttered Dettlaff, seeing Regis's pale face as he walked into the apartment.

"They're helping me," Regis shot back. "Oh, they're helping me. Helping me remember what I'd like to forget." He opened the hall closet door a tad too forcefully. Its hinges whined, and the door banged against the wall.

Dettlaff cringed involuntarily and put his book down on the kitchen table. Regis was always the paragon of self-control, but he couldn't help getting the impression that Regis was mad at someone, and that someone was him. Was this what it was like to be on the receiving end of one of his own moods? But Regis was talking, at least. So Dettlaff, despite his disinclination towards conversation with an irascible Regis, forced himself to respond. "May I ask what you recalled?"

"No, you may not," came the curt reply. Dettlaff noticed that Regis's fingers were trembling as he unbuttoned his coat.

"Brother," Dettlaff growled, "I need to speak with you. When you've calmed down."

"I'm calm." Regis stuffed his coat into the closet and closed the door. The closet door nearly fell off its hinges.

"You're not. This isn't like you..."

"But it's like you," Regis hissed. It was Dettlaff's turn to grow pale. "You don't like it very much, do you? The anger, the impulsivity, the threat of violence?"

Dettlaff restrained himself admirably. He simply shook his head.

Regis pushed past Dettlaff and sat stiffly on the couch, his makeshift bed. Dettlaff sensed that Regis very much wanted to slam another door, but as the living room of the apartment served as Regis's bedroom, there was simply no door to slam. Yanking the privacy curtain shut would not soothe the inner turmoil either, Dettlaff knew. From experience.

"Neither," Regis added, still staring daggers at Dettlaff, "did the innocent citizens of Beauclair." Then Regis dropped his gaze and sank back into the couch.

"You told the counselor about the Night of Long Fangs?"

"Don't be ridiculous," mumbled Regis faintly from under a blanket he'd pulled over his face and chest. It seemed that his display of ire had exhausted itself.

"Is that why you've been ignoring me for the last few weeks?" Dettlaff persisted.

"I haven't been ignoring you," Regis protested feebly.

"It is about that, then. About what happened centuries ago. I thought you understood me."

"And I thought I understood you," said the sad voice under the blanket, tinged with just a trace of bitterness, just like the wormwood-tinged cologne of its owner.

"I'm... sorry?" Dettlaff felt compelled to apologize. He wasn't sure what for, this time. After the fog of blind rage had lifted, after he'd revenged himself on Syanna, he'd realized what he'd done, of course. He'd come to Regis and apologized, but Regis had simply said, "Let us never speak of this again." And so they hadn't. For half a millennium or more.

A hand emerged from under the blanket and patted the couch. Dettlaff went over and sat down beside Regis's blanket-shrouded form.

"I'm sorry," Regis said, pulling the blanket off his face and looking at Dettlaff. Dettlaff noticed that Regis's eyes were shining oddly. "I've treated you shabbily."

"Are you sure the counseling is helping?" Dettlaff asked, gently this time.

"I think it is." Regis passed a cool hand over his weary eyes. "I have to speak about everything. I have to remember everything. Things I thought I'd forgotten, hoped I'd forgotten... I'm beginning to think that I ought to talk more about things."

"Have mercy, Regis," muttered Dettlaff. He couldn't help himself. His comment wasn't received badly, however; Regis laughed.

"I recalled more than that Night, though," Regis said after a pause. "Would you mind if I talked to you about it?"

"Not at all," Dettlaff said.

So Regis talked to him about the Battle of the Bridge over the Yaruga. He talked about the hansa, about Milva, Cahir, Angouleme, and Dandelion. He talked about Stygga castle. He cried. He talked about Geralt, about fighting lesser vampires during the Night of Long Fangs. He talked about fearing the loss of both Geralt and Dettlaff at Tesham Mutna.

And he talked about finally losing Geralt, after saving his life at Stygga, after saving him from Dettlaff, after all the others had died. And he cried.


	7. Destruction

_This is what I really wanted to talk about at that first proper counseling session. Can I say it?_

"It is a cliche at this point, Agatha, but with great power comes great responsibility. There is a certain power that all people have that most of them aren't aware of, to their endless benefit: their power to destroy. Very few people can recognize that they possess this power and yet manage it well. It's an easy power to wield once you realize it exists, for it's much easier to unleash than the power of creation. You need but reach out your hand and knock something over, and you'll feel that power. It's the power of the waves of the sea, which grinds whatever's on the shore to smooth rocks and fine sand. It's the power of fire, which reduces the finest man-made structures to ash. It's the power of a deadly weapon, which can extinguish lives in the blink of an eye. Our knifeman, as we know, did not wield this power responsibly."

_I'll get to the point. Eventually._

"Based on what I said last session, in very broad strokes, I think you wouldn't be surprised to learn that I have known individuals in my life who have recognized and wielded their power to destroy. Most did so like the knifeman."

_Dettlaff killed Syanna, his lover. And almost killed Geralt, my friend._

"And a very rare few recognized this power for what it was and did not let it consume them."

_Geralt killed Orianna, my friend. And almost killed Dettlaff, my blood brother._

"And I, for my part, am not sure where I stand with regard to this power. I am not sure whether I have the self-control to not let it consume me. You understand that I am speaking in abstract terms. A purely philosophical musing, if you will."

_But Geralt could only have killed Dettlaff with my help. And I was ready to do it. I was ready to kill my blood brother._

"Yet, abstract as the subject is, I find myself troubled by it."

_Troubled by my ability to kill; troubled by the fact that the ability is proven. By the fact that I have blood on my hands, that I have drunk blood, even though all of this was a very long time ago._

Regis tore his eyes away from a spot on the otherwise clean wall—a squashed bug?—that he had been addressing this entire time and looked over at Agatha, half-expecting her to be falling asleep after his soliloquy. But she was alert and attentive, which disappointed him, because it would have been easier to say what he wanted to say if she hadn't been paying attention at all.

_I saw Dettlaff in the man with the knife, and I was angry at him, but after talking to him and unburdening myself to him, I now see myself in the man with the knife. Out of control and heedless. I once was like that._

Agatha seemed to be thinking about something. She finally spoke. "I hear what you're saying. Destruction is close to each of us and, perhaps, destructiveness is inherent in our natures. Am I getting that right?"

"Mm. That's a sufficient summary," Regis said, satisfied.

"You spoke about self-control and being consumed." Agatha flipped through her notes.

"I did," confirmed Regis.

"That's interesting language. When we were doing the intake session, you mentioned you had a history of substance abuse."

"I did," Regis confirmed again.

"Do you think that your thinking about your, hm, ability to harness and restrain destructiveness in yourself is possibly linked to your experience with harnessing and restraining yourself during your recovery from substance abuse?"

Regis thought it over.

_I once was like that, but I'm no longer like that. Far from it._

"I do."

They looked at each other silently for a while, seeming to sense that the moment was somehow important.

_I should really try to get Dettlaff to go for some counseling._


	8. Mastering the Blade

"You don't have to put your razor in odd places to hide it from me. It's not going to give me nightmares."

Regis must have found the razor perched on top of the broken medicine cabinet while cleaning the bathroom, Dettlaff thought. If not for the broken cabinet, I could have put the razor in the cabinet from the beginning instead of on the sink. Then Regis wouldn't have noticed that I moved it out of sight. Wait a moment! He's been skipping his turn cleaning the bathroom if he's only found it now!

Or it's really been giving him nightmares, and he's only now ready to let it return to the sink.

Dettlaff grunted at Regis, who was gingerly holding out the straight razor like a knife, and took the razor back, placing it on the sink. Regis seemed to be unable to tear his gaze from the razor.

"If you like it that much, I can get you one just like it," Dettlaff jested gently. "Want to try it out?"

Regis blinked. "Try it out?" He seemed to be far away in his thoughts. His gaze snapped to Dettlaff. "Actually, that's a good idea. If only to prove a point to myself."

"Go right ahead."

"Go grab a chair, Dettlaff." Regis started preparing Dettlaff's shaving paraphernalia.

"What?"

"I'm going to give you a shave."

"Why?"

"To prove I can harness and restrain the power of destruction in myself. And because I want to see you clean-shaven in the morning for once."


	9. Epilogue

"How do I move on?" the slender old man with grizzled hair and black eyes asks. 

"What do you think moving on looks like?" 

The old man cocks his head and ponders. "I feel stuck," he says finally, "stuck in the past. I don't know if I've ever really been able to move on. I certainly have physically moved on from one place to another. Many times. But it feels more like escaping than moving on."

"What do you think you're escaping? What do you feel you need to move on from?"

Another pause, more pondering. "I'm escaping... the need to move on. When I go away physically, I think I've done my part to let go, to start afresh. But I don't want to move on. I don't want to forget, actually."

A professional silence, to wait for more elaboration.

"All those times, all those places," Regis continues, "are a part of me now. Part of who I am now. For better or for worse. And all those people, my friends... I won't forget them."

"What I'm hearing is that you feel as if you need to move on, but that is not what you want to do. You want to honor what you've experienced, remember the people who have touched your life. For better or for worse."

"I do want to do that." Another long pause. "But it's painful to remember, sometimes."

The counselor smiles sadly. "It is."


End file.
